


love run (run to show that love's worth running to)

by AdmirableMonster (Mertiya)



Series: Kidnap Grandads [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Amnesia, Elwing can't stop won't stop, F/M, Family Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Maglor is self-sacrificing, Nerdanel is best mom AND best grandmom, Nerdanel is delighted to have a grandchild, Or rather fed up with Maedhros being self-sacrificing, Reunions, So many characters in the Void, re-embodiment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/AdmirableMonster
Summary: Elwing wakes alone, re-embodied with scattered bits and pieces of her memories.  She goes to search for her family.
Relationships: Elwing & Earendil & Maglor & Maedhros, Elwing & Fingon, Elwing & Nerdanel, Eärendil/Elwing (Tolkien), Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Series: Kidnap Grandads [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984912
Comments: 28
Kudos: 74





	love run (run to show that love's worth running to)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to lots of people on various discord servers for lots of encouragement
> 
> title from "Not Yet / Love Run" by The Amazing Devil

_There are warm arms about her._

_Someone is yelling.Surprisingly, it isn’t her.She’s safe._

_“But do you_ want _to go?”_

She’s standing in a forest.Bright sunlight filters through the dappling leaves, and a kind wind whispers through her hair.Something tickles her shoulders, and she looks down to see that she is clad in a cloak of shimmering white feathers and nothing else.She searches her memory, but it is empty except for a single image of something red spilled across her own hand and then a memory of warmth and arms around her.Strange.

With a shrug, she begins to walk.Something inside her is certain that she will find a place to be, eventually, and she is not tired, and she is not hungry, and the Sun is high in the sky, and the birds are singing.She smiles to herself and sings a snatch of song that comes to her as she walks, “ _Fly free, little one…_ ”

She has walked for a few hours, through the dappled soothing wood, when she comes to a house woven from the living trees and hears a clear voice singing.She steps lightly around it, pausing to run her fingers across the wild, blowsy roses that climb up along one woven wall, and steps out into a bright, clear light.The singer looks up, a tall Elf with her red hair pulled back in a braid and one white flower tucked into it, a splash of freckles across her nose.She looks familiar, although the walking maiden is certain she has never seen her before.

The singer rises with a smile and comes to greet her.“You are newly re-embodied,” she says gently.“I do not expect you will remember much, but I was not expecting a girl-child of my family returning here, so you will forgive me if I ask if you can recall your name? I am Nerdanel.”

The name rises to her lips half without thought.“My name is Elwing.”

* * *

It seems the recently re-embodied require a great deal of sleep.Elwing sleeps for what seems to her to be a cozy few minutes and wakes to find that two days have passed.Nerdanel is by her bed, whittling a little wooden statue.“How are you feeling, child?” she asks.

Elwing considers this.“Not bad,” she decides cautiously.“I still don’t remember much, I’m sorry.”

Nerdanel puts out a gentle, hesitant hand and touches hers.“You’ll remember when you’re ready,” she says.“I am…glad that you have come but saddened too.You do not even look full-grown and yet you have returned before any of my children.”

It is then that Elwing sees that there are tears glimmering in Nerdanel’s eyes.She rises from the bed, feeling awkward and unbalanced, and presses close to the other’s side.She has no words to share, but she leans against Nerdanel’s side, and Nerdanel gives her a warm smile and then a quick, tight hug.

Elwing likes living with Nerdanel.Her memories still fail to return, but Nerdanel does not push or pressure her.Instead, she invites Elwing to her studio and shows her how to shape stone, clay, wood.They eat simple meals together, and Elwing wanders in the little library of books her grandmother keeps.She pauses often in front of the portrait that hangs between two bookshelves.Nerdanel is in the center, smiling hugely; behind her is a dark-haired man who must be Elwing’s grandfather, although Nerdanel never speaks of him, and all around her are the seven children of whom she _does_ speak, often.Sometimes Elwing recites their names to herself, searching for the brush of recognition in her mind: Maitimo-Russandol-Nelyafinwë, Makalaurë-Kanafinwë, Tyelkormo-Turkafinwë, Carnistir-Morifinwë, Curufinwë-Atarinke, Ambarussa-Pityafinwë, Ambarussa-Telufinwë.None of the names is right, though, and she wishes she knew why.Perhaps she never actually met her father?Perhaps he was taken to the Halls of Mandos before her birth?But that does not seem right either.

She does get restless, eventually.She enjoys sculpting and reading, but she has so much energy to burn off that soon she finds herself going for long walks or swordfighting with the trees.Nerdanel watches her affectionately and then offers to find her someone to practice with.“I am not much of a fighter myself,” she clarifies, “but I have kinsmen who would be happy to spar with you.I will send a note to one of them, if you would like.”

Elwing breaks into a huge grin and hugs her grandmother.“Thank you!” she enthuses.She does not know why the thought of a sword being set into her hand cheers her so greatly, but it brings to mind a strong hand guiding her and sparing words of pride.It also brings to mind the weirdly cheerful-sounding threat, _I shall be good enough to kill you in a month or so_ , but perhaps the trouble there is that her mind has no other context to lay the sentence in.

Nerdanel sends word to her kinsman and a few days later Elwing sees him striding up the sunny little forest path towards them, whistling, a slim Elf with dark hair and a merry way of walking but eyes that spend too long on the ground.Gold glitters in his hair, and Elwing frowns, because she knows that gold, somehow—

_Ridged white scarring across the top of a handless wrist, wrapped in gold that glitters in the firelight.“Why do you always wear that ribbon, Ada?”_

_A silence so long she knows that she shouldn’t have asked.She knows silences like that.She knows the nightmares that lie beneath them.But he speaks all the same, eventually.“Because it is all that I have left of the one I loved.”_

Elwing shivers out of a memory of sorrow and back into a bright, sunny day in Valinor and goes out to greet the Elf who has agreed to help her.

“My name is Findekáno,” he introduces himself.“Or you may call me Fingon.Nerdanel said you wanted a sparring instructor?Or a partner, perhaps?”

She likes him instantly, this Elf.He is trying very hard to be cheerful, and that plucks at some memories in the back of her mind as well, but he does not make it difficult to talk to him.He does not shut himself away in grief; he is open about the mingling of grief and sorrow, and she wonders how she can tell that, when she has never met him before.“I am newly re-embodied,” she explains.“I do not have many memories—Nerdanel believes I am her grand-daughter, but I do not know which of her sons is my father.”

Fingon frowns.“You do not really have a Fëanorian look about you,” he says doubtfully.“But if you were re-embodied here that does bespeak a relationship, and a close one.Perhaps you take after your mother.”He removes a wooden sword from his belt and hands it to her; her body thrills with eagerness at its touch.“Show me what you can do,” Fingon grins, taking up a second sword, and he leaps at her lightly.

 _She_ does not remember this, but her body does, and she catches his light attack with a laugh, deflecting it and moving fluidly into a response.For a few delightful moments, they move together in a dance, weaving in and out.Elwing remains on the defensive, letting Fingon test her reflexes and watching him at the same time, trying to find an opening.And _there_ —that might be one, if she can only get her sword there in time—so she tosses it from her right hand to her left and comes in for a wild-angled attack that hits a glancing blow along Fingon’s ribcage, then dances back with a grin, expecting him to respond with approval or perhaps chagrin.

She does not expect him to stand there, staring at her as if he has seen a ghost, his eyes huge and that subtle grief no longer subtle—suddenly paramount in him.“Fingon?” she says uncertainly.

“I would recognize that move _anywhere_ ,” Fingon chokes out.“You were trained by Maedhros.”

 _Maedhros_.“Maedhros?” Elwing repeats, and _that_ name on her tongue sounds familiar.That name on her tongue is a mess of confused emotions and images, all of them rising up from her subconscious to fight for her attention.“You are wearing his ribbons in your hair,” she says, helplessly, after a moment, and _then_ she sees the red hair spilled across her hand again and the white bloodless grin on her father’s face and her other father—“ _Maglor_ —” On the ground and surrounded by blood, red as her father’s hair.

And the others—“ _Eärendil_ ,” gasps Elwing, seeing the fluffy hair framing her husband’s smiling face as he hefts the babies and steps backward, tears streaming from his eyes.Elwing stands mute and wide-eyed, a hand outstretched, and it is only when Fingon touches her that she realizes he has been saying her name for the past few minutes, and she goes to her knees and bursts into wild sobs.

“My babies—my _sons_ —” she howls, and he gathers her up and rocks her and makes soothing noises that are so achingly familiar, but he is not either of her fathers.She clings to him, and moments later she hears Nerdanel’s footsteps on the path.

“Elwing!”Nerdanel cries, and now her grandmother’s arms are about her as well, her grandmother’s hand in her hair.“Shhhh, child, shhhh.”

“My babies,” weeps Elwing.

“Your _babies_?” Nerdanel repeats, her voice shocked.

“Where are they?Why aren’t they here?Where is Eärendil?Where—where are my _fathers_?”

“Hush, hush, child.Finno, help me get her back to the house.” 

The two of them help Elwing to her feet and lead her inside.Nerdanel rubs her shoulders soothingly, and Fingon hovers solicitously.Elwing cannot stop crying.Inside Nerdanel’s warm, sunny house, her grandmother sends Fingon to make up a mug of hot cider.She tucks a soft, woolly blanket about Elwing’s shoulders.“There,” she says quietly.“Is it your memories, Elwing?”

Elwing nods, trembling, frustrated by the tears that her eyes continue to pump out streaming down her face.“I don’t—I don’t remember everything.”She scrubs at her eyes.“But enough.I have two fathers, and their names are Maedhros and Maglor.”

Nerdanel’s breath catches.“Findekáno?” she says uncertainly.

Fingon returns, pressing a hot mug between Elwing’s hands.“Maitimo and Makalaurë,” he says softly, and Nerdanel makes a soft little noise.

“No mother?” she asks, a little sadly.

“I had a mother once, I think.”Elwing frowns, but she can only pull up the image of a blurry form all in white and red, with no face.Her memories are still confused, a mess of images she is having trouble sorting through.Only a few are clear.“But…but my babies.My husband.My fathers.Where are they?”She chokes.“We all—we all died at once.”

“Oh, Elwing.”Nerdanel embraces her tightly.“That’s—I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”She shakes her head.“I should have been there.I should never have—” She cuts herself off with a sigh.“Your babies—how old were they?”

Elwing bites her lip.“Six,” she says in a low voice.“Tiny.”Tiny and impossible and beautiful.Her memory gives her another image, of Maedhros-her-father and Maglor-her-other-father, each cuddling one of the twins in their laps, while Maglor sings and Maedhros plays one-handed hand games.She swears Elrond started teething on Maedhros’s wrist, and for an instant, all her memories slot into places, and she _knows_ —and then they fragment apart again.Elwing could scream with frustration.

“They _should_ be here then.”Fingon makes a soft noise of agreement.He hasn’t said much, and when Elwing looks up at him, she can see that his face is twisted with longing, and those golden ribbons glint in the sunlight.

“Fingon?” she says.“Are you…the one he lost?” 

Fingon nods jerkily, his hands twisting together.“I…I am not surprised that he is not here,” he says in a low voice.“I imagine it will be some time before Námo releases any—any of the House of Fëanor.”Nerdanel makes a frustrated noise as well.Fingon shakes his head and forces a smile.“But it is true, Elwing, that you should not have been returned without your children, at least.”

“ _Children_ ,” mutters Nerdanel, and Elwing can almost hear her fathers’ disapproval on her grandmother’s tongue.

“They are ever so sweet,” she retorts.

“I have no doubt,” Nerdanel says, putting a hand on Elwing’s.“But what my sons were _thinking_ , letting you—”

“They did not let me,” Elwing says uncomfortably, though all of that is still a muddle.“I cannot remember how all of it happened, though.”

“I am sorry,” Nerdanel says frankly.“I ought not to push.We will find them, Elwing.Now drink your cider, and dry your tears, and we will talk.”

Elwing obeys her, sipping at the hot drink tiredly.

“Have you heard of any little ones returning?” Nerdanel asks Fingon, who shakes his head.

“And that, I think, we would have heard of,” he says slowly.“Babies being re-embodied?”He shudders.“But why should Námo send their mother alone?”He shakes his head.“I think we’ll have to petition him.”

Nerdanel sighs, but nods.“It does seem to be the easiest way to find out what has happened.”

“How do I get to Námo?” Elwing demands instantly.“I want them back.I need them back.I need to know when my _fathers_ will be back.”

“I’ll come with you,” Fingon says, with a determined twist of his chin.“After all, Maedhros is your father, and Maedhros is my husband, so that makes me your father, too.”

And that appears to settle that.Nerdanel packs them some food (“it’s a long hike to the closest entrance to Mandos”) and finds Elwing a pair of sturdy boots.Fingon fills up the time that Elwing is forced to wait by telling her a sweet and silly story about courting her father before they ever left this land.(“You never knew anyone more oblivious than Maitimo—Maedhros, you know.”)

It is dream-like, this hike, through the woods filled with golden afternoon light.They become emptier and emptier the further along the path they go.Elwing finds everything more and more dreamlike.And yet, she has her grandmother on one side of her and her oldest father’s husband on the other, and she feels strong.When they come to a misty clearing, she is ready, and she steps forward with her head held high, her hands held tight by those she loves.“Námo!” she cries in ringing tones.

In the strange, half-light, she cannot really see the figure opposite her.Just an outline of a hood and cloak, and a touch of silver starlight behind.“Who calls for me?” Námo asks.“What is your purpose here, child?”Their voice is not what Elwing expects—it is gentle, neither high nor low, and almost welcoming.

“I am not a child,” she flings back hotly, and Fingon places a hand reassuringly on her shoulder.“I am Elwing Nelyafinwiel, wife of Eärendil, mother of two, and I wish to know what you have done with my _family_ —O Lord.”She just barely manages to get herself to tack on the last.

Námo’s head bows forward slightly.“Your father and mother reside still within my halls.They do not wish to leave.”

Elwing frowns.“My husband—my babies—my _other_ father!”

There is a distinct note of confusion in Námo’s voice.“Your husband and children are not here, Elwing…” There is a pause.“…did you say ‘Nelyafinwiel’?”

“Elwing Nelyafinwiel.Elwing Kanafinwiel.Those are both my names, and I am here with my father’s husband Findekáno and my fathers’ mother Nerdanel.”

Another pause, quite a bit longer this time.“You…are not the daughter of the Fëanorions,” Námo says.He sounds somewhat unsure.

Elwing snorts.“Do the Valar fail to understand the ties of kin so thoroughly?It was signed and sealed--” She can see them now, Maedhros and Maglor, kneeling at her feet, in chains—in chains?But the image vanishes as quickly as it has arisen.“They are my fathers,” she says firmly.“Let me see them.Where is my husband?My _children_?”

The twist of Námo’s hood seems…embarrassed?Concerned?“My lady Elwing…you should not have been re-embodied…here.Melian waits for you.”

“Who is Melian? No, never mind, stop trying to sidetrack me and _tell me_ —”She reaches for her sword and draws it with a sharp, ringing sound.

“ _Elwing_!” gasps Fingon.

“ _Where is my family?_ ”

Námo tilts his head.“They are not—in my domain,” he confesses, after a moment.“Eärendil, Elros, and Elrond never entered my halls.”

“What?”

“By the power of Ulmo, they—ah—arrived safely in Valinor.”

“Then they’re here?” Elwing’s sword point is shaking, and it shakes harder when Námo shakes his head.“Then where _are_ they?” she wails.

“When we reclaimed the Silmarils from Melkor, we thought it would be best if they were no longer tied to Arda, and Eärendil agreed to take them—”

“Take them where?”

There is a very long, very unpleasant pause.Then Námo’s finger points…up.Up, up, up.The mist seems to part above the clearing, and although it was only late afternoon when they arrived, Elwing sees the blackness of the night sky above, with the diamond pinpricks of the stars shining through.But three of the stars are moving against the backdrop of the others.Elwing’s breath sobs in and out of her lungs, and her grip tightens on her sword.

“ _You sent my grandchild and his babies to the Void_?” shrieks Nerdanel.

* * *

Maglor wakes up slowly.His back aches, and he feels—strange.He can’t quite put a finger on what sort of strangeness this feeling is, and trying to hard makes him feel as if he might come apart at the seams, so he stops and opens his eyes instead.There’s a dim shadowy light everywhere.When he raises his hand out ahead of him, he can see it white in the darkness, but it seems to swim unpleasantly.

“I wouldn’t think about it too hard, if I were you.”

That voice is familiar, almost as familiar as his own, but Maglor’s mind is so stuffy and fractured that it takes him almost a full minute to force numb lips to croak, “Nelyo?”

“I’m surprised I woke up first.Maybe a lingering gift from my time in Angband.”And that is certainly Maedhros’s full sarcasm going.

It takes effort for Maglor to look, but somehow he manages it.There is the red hair, the pinched and careworn face.He has his chin propped on the stump of his right hand as he stares outward into—the place that Maglor’s brain is trying very hard not to process, because it is blackness fragmented across with burning bright lights and swirling colors.If he focuses carefully on one point at his feet, he can see a sort of pale road in the midst of dark waters, alongside a shining river.Or perhaps the road and the river are one and the same.

“Where _are_ we?Surely this is not Mandos.”

“If I had to venture a guess,” Maedhros says, his voice tight and dry, “I would say the Void.”

The _Void_.Maglor has to take a long breath at that.“Why—oh.”It comes to him immediately.“Because we stopped fighting.Protected Eärendil and Elwing and the babies above the Silmarils.”He would not do anything else, no matter what.So he will ignore the distant grief and fear that he feels and instead keep moving.Perhaps he should be proud, for in the end they have not escaped the Oath but they have kept safe that which is more precious than any Silmaril.He does not know if his father would be proud—but, Maglor thinks, his mother.His mother would be.

He presses close to Maedhros.At least in this last extremity, they are not alone.Maedhros makes an irritable noise but puts his arm around Maglor, holding him tightly. 

Time seems to move strangely here, or perhaps it is only that it’s too easy to lose track of himself when the line between him and the great swirling space is as thin as a hair.Maglor tries to dig his nails into his palm, wondering why can can’t feel them, and gets a poke.“That’s _my_ hand,” Maedhros tells him.“My _only_ hand.”It gives Maglor a queer, seasick sensation, and instead he focuses on the echo of sharp steel between his ribs.

“You had Elwing stab me,” he realizes presently.

“We really did not have time for an argument,” Maedhros says mildly.“Also, any time Elwing kills you, it is entirely her own choice.”

“Because she _often_ commits homicide,” Maglor retorts dryly.

“Largely only in sparring practice,” Maedhros agrees.“Only twice beyond that, as far as I am aware.But I was careful to give her feedback.”

Maglor can’t stop the laugh that bubbles up from his throat.“Only you, Nelyo, would teach your daughter how to kill you,” he gasps.

“It came in handy for all of us, in the end.”

“You couldn’t have known that.”

Letting his head falling sideways onto Maglor’s shoulder, Maedhros favors him with a wry grin.“I knew it would come in handy for me.”

There isn’t much Maglor can say in response to that, considering where they both are now.He considers making yet another hand joke, decides there is a good chance Maedhros was setting him up for exactly that, and abstains.Instead, he squints out at the weird, roiling space all about them, forcing himself to engage with it. 

It’s difficult as his eyes drift across strange shapes or shapes too big or darkness too deep, but after some time, he frowns.“What’s that?” he says, pointing to something moving out along at the very edge of perception along the pale road.

Maedhros squints as well.“That…is a ship.”It is, now that he says that, a tiny ship illuminated a brilliant white by a light that makes Maglor’s stomach turn uneasily.The tension tightens further as the ship slowly wends its way closer, as the road turns it sideways, and Maglor can see that in its wake there is churning light and then the edge of squirming, unpleasant darkness, as if some Thing is writhing along behind it in pursuit.

The little ship is rocking back and forth as if the medium in which it sails is churning roughly.Maedhros frowns, starting to get to his feet, and Maglor follows.They have just pulled themselves upright when they see a familiar curly head appear in the bow of the ship, looking anxiously backward.Two little boys with the eight-pointed Fëanorian star embroidered on their tunics are tucked under his arms.

Maedhros swears loudly, and he is running before Maglor can even manage to gasp out a warning.His feet land on the pale road-or-river and throw up little splashes of fine sparkling sand, stardust, or possibly glittering water.“Eärendil!” Maglor calls out, and then he is following his elder brother and pounding hell-for-leather down the path/road/river.

They have covered half the distance when Eärendil sees them, and his face cracks open across with sudden relief.He sets the twins down and waves frantically, shouting something incomprehensible.Maglor’s sword is in his hand, and Maedhros’s is gleaming in his.Maglor cannot be certain if they had them the whole time.

They reach the ship and hear it creaking frantically.The darkness swirling at its stern raises one ink-black claw.Elrond and Elros scream and hide behind Eärendil, who grimaces and raises his own sword.Maedhros, a few paces ahead of Maglor, is already clambering up the side, clumsy with one hand but still swift.And yet he is not fast enough—the great, bloated thing is rearing back, and Maglor can only see it because it blocks all light behind it.Sizzling darkness falls from its scissoring jaws onto the deck of the ship and leaves patches of dead black behind.Eärendil’s slim figure is so tiny before it, and Maglor’s heart falls into his boots as the spider-shaped darkness moves to attack.

There’s a battle cry from the other side of the ship, and two swift-moving forms with gleaming swords drop to the deck in front of Eärendil.Bright blue light flares as the monster’s blow is caught and held back by twin blades.Maedhros reaches them in the next moment, and Maglor is not far behind.There is no room for him to attack with his sword, so he cries out instead, letting his song billow from his throat, and here where they are nowhere, it is visible as a great surge of light that crashes against the side of the creature and sends it rearing back.It retreats before the combined ferocity of the four of them, and then an arrow from Eärendil’s bow zips home into its flesh.It screams, and the two other warriors press the attack viciously, with Maedhros and Maglor falling back seamlessly to back them up.Their swords flash.The spider screams again, and one of its legs falls to the deck; a second one is pinned through with another arrow so that it can no longer retreat.

Abruptly the tide has turned.The spider is dying, black blood staining the deck.Wiping sweat from their foreheads, the other two—blue-clad Elves Maglor does not recognize—relax.Eärendil hurries forward.“Atar, Atya—are you all right?”In his arms, Elrond and Elros wriggle and reach for their grandfathers.

An ominous hissing noise draws Maglor’s attention back.Dying it may be, but the spider is still trying to attack.“Get back,” snaps one of the other rescuers.Arms reach out for Eärendil and the babies.Maglor sees Maedhros smile, his profile turning back slightly towards his brother as he steps forward.

And Maedhros has the most damn _Nelyo_ expression on his face as he stands between the spider’s death throes and the others, and Maglor knows that he would pass even from the Void without a thought, because Maedhros has never taken his eyes away from death since the day Maglor brought him home fingering a mud-spattered golden ribbon.And Maglor is _tired_ of it, because Maedhros cannot always be the only one making terrible decision—and really, he never has been—

So Maglor takes his brother’s forearms in his hands and wraps his smaller body around Maedhros’s larger one and wrestles him to the ground.He is _almost_ in time—the final motion of that huge claw sweeps through the empty space the two of them were occupying without impacting either of them, but even as Maglor gasps a breath of relief, something dark drips from it and lands somewhere on his upper shoulderblade.

There is a brief sensation of moisture, and then Maglor is screaming because he has never felt pain like this, this burning that seems to consume him from its central point in his shoulder.Agony radiates out from it, and he cannot stop the curses and sobs falling from his lips.The ship shudders and rocks beneath him.

“ _Káno, Káno_ ,” Maedhros’s voice is saying.

Maglor wants to reassure him that it’s fine, that he’s all right, but it _hurts it hurts it hurts_ —

Eärendil cries out suddenly, loudly. 

“It can’t be,” Maedhros’s voice again, tight, broken with emotion.His hands on Maglor are all that anchor Maglor here in whatever remains of his self.“ _Ammë_ —can you help him?”

 _Ammë_?Maglor’s vision swims.Is he dissolving into a fever dream?Curls of red hair fall into his face.Two—two pairs of green eyes are looking down at him.“Hush, Káno.I’ve got you.”Soft arms gather him up carefully.“Crying over a little burn again?” her voice scolds softly, amusedly.“You’re safe, my son.Who here has experience with healing?We should clean and dress this injury.”

Maglor doesn’t know when the last time he cried was.Certainly he hasn’t cried in front of anyone else in centuries.He never wanted to bother Maedhros with it.But he’s crying now, sobbing less at the pain and more at the tenderness with which his mother holds him.“Relax,” she tells him.“I’ve got you, Káno.”

* * *

It’s just one thing after another.Elwing hasn’t had a moment to breathe since the three of them bullied Námo into opening them a doorway into the Void, after protesting for far too long that even if he did, there was no way for them to move through it.“Watch us,” Fingon told him politely. 

“The Void is not like our realm,” Námo tried to protest again.

“Thank you,” Nerdanel told him firmly.“I know how to create things.” They walked through the Void on a billowing piece of cloth that Nerdanel seemed to be weaving as they traversed it, and they reached Eärendil’s ship just in time to see Atya take a blow meant for Atar—because of course he did.And then there was no time for anything but worrying until they had cared for the injury, and Atya was resting comfortably, tucked up in Eärendil’s little bed beneath decks.

And now there is suddenly time for a breath, and Elwing doesn’t know where to start.Eärendil takes away her indecision, by grabbing her and pulling her into his arms.They kiss and kiss and kiss, and the babies wriggle and laugh and pull at her hair.She drops kisses on their little heads, too, and she cries, and then she looks up and sees that Atar, at Atya’s side, has a haunted, terrified, questioning look in his eyes, and he is looking at the doorway, where Fingon and the two others are hovering.Those two others look so strangely familiar, but Elwing doesn’t know who they are, or what they are doing here.How many Elves _are_ there in this Void, anyway?

And what are Fingon and Atar _doing_?They are just _looking_ at each other, as if they’re frightened.Which is ridiculous.“Atar.Maedhros,” Elwing says firmly, and he blinks at looks at her.His expression is so soft—she does not remember seeing it ever look this soft before, although her memories are still in clumps and tatters.

“Do you need congratulations on how well you killed me?” he drawls, almost too loudly.

Elwing opens her mouth, looks over at the hopeful, terrified look on Fingon’s face, looks back at her father.“Just a minute,” she says to Eärendil.“Can you hold the babies?”

“Of course, love.”Eärendil’s eyes sparkle as if he’s already realized what she’s planning.Elwing hurries over to Maedhros and puts her hands on her hips. 

“Are you just going to sit there?” she demands.

“I…Elwing…”

“He is _waiting_ for you.”

Maedhros looks at the ground.Elwing snaps.She reaches out and grabs his upper ear and pulls.Maedhros yelps in surprise and pain and everyone looks around at her as she pulls him to his feet and marches him towards the door.

“ _Ow!Elwing!Stop_!”

“ _Give him back his ribbon right now_!”

She shoves Atar practically into Fingon’s arms.He’s trembling.“F-Finno, I don’t—”

“You’re wearing my ribbon,” Fingon says softly.

“Yes—of course—but you don’t have to—”

“Shut up,” Fingon says, and Elwing looks away to give them a little privacy as they kiss.

She catches the eye of the two others, who are hovering in the corner, close to one another.They keep looking over at her.

“What are you looking at?” Elwing demands before she can stop herself.

“We remember you,” one of them says. 

“We think?” puts in the other.“We’re sorry—”

“We have been here for a long time,” finishes the first.“But you look familiar.”

Elwing frowns.There _is_ a memory trying to push its way out of her head—it’s connected, she thinks, to the darkness that lurks in Atar’s eyes sometimes.To the way he asked if she wanted congratulations for killing him, as if he were asking, _did you enjoy killing me, daughter?_ But try as she might, all she can come up with is the strange and fleeting image of a dark forest and two little boys in blue.

“You…look familiar, too,” she says slowly, and she puts out her hand cautiously to them.“My memories are still very blurred, but perhaps we knew each other once?”

“Ours are as well, but we think we know you…”

 _Two little boys in blue.A dark forest.Screams and crying, pleading and begging.A wail that goes on and on and does not stop._ Elwing does not think she _wants_ these memories, but she does want these boys.Not so little anymore.She steps over to them.“Let us be friends, then,” she says firmly.“We will be friends now, and then we will not need those memories.”

“Friends,” agree the two blue-clad warriors.They smile at her and one of them kisses each of her cheeks.

This is, of course, the moment when Nerdanel calls out harshly.Everyone in the room turns to look; she is staring out of the window and pointing.

The thing that is approaching them is all wrong; a great ball of flaming darkness, with a crown of icy thorns trailing behind it.Whatever it is, whether it is come from the spiders or just the Void, a missile or sheer bad luck, it is half again as big as Eärendil’s little boat and if it strikes them—Elwing is quite sure that there will be nothing left at all.

Eärendil gasps harshly and exclaims, “I will go to the wheel!” and he presses the babies into Maedhros’s arms as he goes past them.Elwing stands in the center of the room and frowns, because she cannot help with the navigation, but something is tugging at her mind.

The clamor that rises around her as everyone else begins to speak rapidly and loudly seems to fade away.She sees golden leaves and feels a touch both subtle and strong, an enchantment forged with blood and song, roots and branches.Her own blood hums as she thinks of it.It is there; she can feel it.The gold within her bones.The song within her bones.

Elwing shuts her eyes.Out here, in the midst of nothing, far beyond the bounds of her world, she feels power at her fingertips, as if she is more than she has ever been, as if, in the place where the Song is not woven into everything, she can weave her own melody and sing her own solo part without the need for care.

She will not let her family die.She opens her mouth and sings.

At first, there is nothing.Then—a single seed takes root slowly in the center of the deck.Tiny roots wind down into a fertile soil created in the same note.A thin trunk expands upwards beneath the black and terrifying sky.Still slow and wobbling at first, then growing in speed and ferocity as Elwing’s song grows.Heavy branches split open; leaves open; great thorns grow.As the fiery object hurtles towards them, blossoms unfurl, and the silver-gold leaves flatten against the sky.

She doesn’t know how loud the impact is.To her, it is not so much a sound as a vibration that travels through her bones, a reverberation of cosmic proportions that threatens to shake her apart.But she is Elwing Kanafinwiel, Elwing Nelyafinwiel, Elwing Fëanorian, and in her bones is all that strength and stubbornness.In her bones is a golden song stretching back to her ancestors.Some tiny spark inside her remembersexistence in this churning darkness and the birth of a music then that, woven about, protected a world far more vast than their little ship.But now there is only this, and upon this little ship is everyone she cares for.

The comet shatters against Elwing’s Girdle.


End file.
